Méditations

CD Méditations Les Violoncelles Français

The cello octet is a formation that is heard only rarely. Yet it harks back to a tradition which was highly esteemed until the early eighteenth century, the practice of forming ensembles of instruments of the same family.
Recorder quartets, lute trios and ensembles of hunting horns were for centuries the delight of amateur musicians, to whom they offered an ideal opportunity to express themselves and exchange with each other.
It was the requirements of the opera house that gave birth to our modern orchestra.
Learned counterpoint and rich ornamentation disappeared, giving way to a much more rigid structure which, by separating melody and harmony, fixed each instrument in a clearly determined role.